


Bruises and Burns

by noconceptoflife



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, caleb pov, spoilers for Caleb's Backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-01-31 03:43:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21439660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noconceptoflife/pseuds/noconceptoflife
Summary: Along Caleb's arm is a long permanent bruise, tender to the touch and green-brown like it's infected.Nott's hand is covered by a heavy and mottled scar, still warm like she was just burned yesterday.
Relationships: Nott/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 26
Kudos: 141





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've got like... 3 more nottleb fic ideas

Bren at ten is smart and cunning, and he knows enough about soul-marks to know that they're rare. Only two other people in his village have them, and they've both talked to him about their own marks. How it started out simple and then began to develop as they got older.

He was born with a mark in full detail, which means that his soulmate is one of the longer-lived races. It also means he should wait until he's a real adult to find her. He doesn't imagine having much fun with a soulmate who's already an adult and having to wait to catch up. He imagines the possibilities when he doesn't have work to do.

He knows some things about her through his mark. It's a necklace of buttons, strung with hay, decorated with pretty shiny baubles. The buttons are in many colors, winding down his arm. The baubles change sometimes. He never catches it in the act of changing, but he keeps track of them. A shiny spoon bent around the biggest button, glass beads dangling from stray straws of hay, a small pair of glasses, a silver smoking pipe, button earrings, flowers, smaller bracelets, and scraps of yellow fabric. It all paints a picture he's a little too young to get, the idea of metaphors or literal meaning blending together, but he still imagines.

What's likely? He hasn't seen any elves or dwarves, so obviously she can't be either of those. He has met a half-elf traveling through, a band of halflings who he couldn't play with, and a gnome man who was so old his white hair had whiter steaks in it. So, maybe she's a half-elf, or a halfling, or a gnome. 

(He never considers that she might not be an empire resident. Of course, his soulmate is an empire resident. What else would she be?)

He isn't sure, but a small wife sounds like a challenge because he doesn't know if he can buy her the small furniture she needs. His family sleeps on straw-stuffed sacks made of old flour bags, and they eat what they grow. Maybe her family has more money, and when he marries her she'll let him take his parents to her and they can afford nice things and sweets for their babies. But can humans have babies with halflings or gnomes? If a human can have a baby with an orc or an elf they ought to be able to have a baby with anyone! That's Bren's opinion.

After doing chores and playing with friends Bren curls up in bed and eyes his soul-mark until he drifts off and dreams about his soulmate. He imagines her as having long hair filled with decorated ribbons. She wears dresses made of patchwork yellows. Yellows in dandelion yellow-green, bright-light hay colors, mustard hues, but never gold. He's sure she's not a gold kind of person, or else he'd have seen a golden bauble by now. He imagines himself tall and older, able to give her a ring washed with silver and maybe a chip of amber to match her yellow dresses. He imagines her in a coat full of buttons, in a button necklace, with button earrings, smoking with a silver pipe, eating with dented silver spoons.

He can't wait to meet her.

~

Bren at fourteen is smart and cunning, and he knows that soulmates are a weakness and futile to pursue.

No one else at the academy has a soul-mark.

Trent points this out early on. He grips Bren's arm and looks as he pleases, turning his arm to get all the details of his soul-mark. It's changed, there's still the earrings and the scraps of cloth but the baubles are a cane handle, a fake ruby ring, and a bent silver fork.

"So some country girl has you for a soulmate?" Trent wrinkles his nose. "I can't imagine your embarrassment at having some country bumpkin with cheap jewelry and cheap silverware on your skin."

Bren just nods, because he's thought the same thing as he got older. Now he looks at his mark and thinks that with all this ahead of him, what use is this stranger? What use is this button necklace, the stupid baubles, the fraying cloth, and fake luxury? Bren thinks this is a woman who will always be wanting, who will try and use the power he's got for little material things. He thinks this is a woman who can't give him what he truly wants. The thought of those older imaginings, when he thought about being some commoner with a commoner wife and dreaming only of sweets and pretty things, it makes his lips curl. He doesn't hide his mark and openly scoffs at it when people ask.

He even lets Astrid grip his arm and look her fill of his mark, and he has defenses on his tongue ready.

A farm girl, perhaps. A seamstress, maybe. A jewelry maker, less likely but possible. All beneath them.

Instead, Astrid says "I wonder what your mark on her looks like."

It's a smart question, one he's wondered himself. "My worry is she'll know I'm here and come looking for me expecting a leg up for free." Bren's frown is wry. "I'm not looking for someone to claim me when I am fine on my own."

Astrid's smile is understanding. "Of course." She agrees with him. "Soulmates are a lot of nonsense anyway, you're one of the smartest boys I know, and you're going to rise to the top. Maybe find her then, and you can have a happy trophy wife who gets you and takes care of you and your kids?"

Bren wrinkles his nose further. The idea of a doting wife and doting kids isn't terrible, but he still shakes his head. "I want a partner, not someone who only happens to know how to make me happy." He dismisses.

Astrid nods once again. "Smart answer! That was a test." She lets his sleeve fall. "Come on, then?"

He does so.

~

He's sure he loves Astrid. Astrid who's smart and beautiful who knows him from home and who was picked to be special along with him. He's sure that his soulmate isn't important, isn't what he wants, is only a trick of fate.

But when Trent pierces his soul-mark with those crystals to lodge them in his skin, he wants to gnaw the mark off to keep it safe. He watches buttons become warped and baubles split as his mark is destroyed with gritted teeth. He wonders if her mark of him is warping too, if this destruction goes both ways, and he wonders about her. He wonders if she dismisses him. He wonders if she doesn't care about some human country bumpkin boy lucky enough to get picked up and called a prodigy. He wonders if she ever thought about half-human babies. He wonders if she ever thought about small furniture or what their families would do when they got married. He wonders if she dismissed him the moment he came into the world, with her beautiful mark on him and something small and insignificant on hers.

In those moments full of pain and horror he wants nothing more than for her to show up on his doorstep. He wants her to tell him that she's thought about him forever, and wants him, and wants to take care of him and be taken care of. And he wants her too, imagines that she can make this pain more bearable and bring peace to his mind.

He wonders, and then when the session is over he hates himself for it. He goes back to pining for Astrid but now he does cover his soul-mark. When he sees it under the bandages, it changes, it heals, but it feels like a silent accusation.

~

His family burns, he breaks, and he doesn't wonder anything for a long time.

~

Bren dons himself in ruined clothes and bandages and an amulet that keeps him from ever being found. He rubs dirt in his hair and moves as if hell itself will swallow him if he doesn't get out fast enough. And with what he knows, that's true. Trent's cruelty knows no bounds, and the man is scary creative when he's inflicting that cruelty.

It's been years since he was hidden away, time spent out of his mind.

It's been years since he could look at his soul-mark.

And gods, it has changed. It still has to warp around his scars, but it's even more beautiful and vibrant. It's a little longer, but it's got new beads and new fabric and new baubles. One of the new baubles is a baby rattle, carved from wood and it's shiny and well-loved, even as he trails a finger over it and only feels skin. He wonders if this means she has a baby. He wonders if she's happy and safe, wherever she is. He wonders why he didn't set out at fifteen to hunt her down. He could have just shoved his mark in the face of anyone who could point him in the way of a woman who loves buttons and has a soul-mark.

It can't be too hard to find a woman with a soul-mark in the empire, can it?

The rate of people with soul-marks has been observed to be one in two hundred.

He wraps his soul-mark up with resolve and starts walking. It's something to live for, something to look for. If he can just see her, know she's real, speak to her once if he's feeling brave. He can't insert himself into her life, especially if he's right and she has a child, but he needs to know. 

Fuck what the assembly said.

~

Three years later, his soul-mark aches. Then it itches, and it starts to go cold.

He tugs at the bandages, peeking at the edge, wondering what it is that she's going through that is making it so dramatic.

Except where the rattle charm would usually be is nothing, and his blood goes cold.

No.

He pushes the bandages and sees more nothing.

_ No no no no no. _

He claws at the bandages, ripping it off, but it's too late. The beautiful button necklace is warping, as if rotting away, buttons falling off and fading from his skin. It flakes at the edges, the baby rattle shriveling to nothing and the glasses tarnishing to dust. The only thing that he still has is the straw but even that's fading. It's rotting away and turning murky and beautiful yellow and gleaming baubles turn to brown and green like an ugly bruise.

Soulmate deaths are often signified by a blackening or total loss of the soul-mark. It is often concluded by leaving behind scars or discoloration. He read that once, trying to find justification for ignoring her, for giving up on her.

Bren collapses to his knees, clutching his arm, and screams until the veins in his eyes burst. He cries, and shouts, and rips at himself until he'd bloody and dehydrated and exhausted.

He gets up.

He wraps bandages tight around his soul-mark-turned-tombstone.

He picks a direction.

He gives up and thinks only of living.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God works fast but I work faster.
> 
> Once again unbeta'ed so if you see anything dumb or an unfinished sentence that's why

"You think that thing's gonna kill em?" One guard says to the other.

Bren can hardly hear them over the ringing in his ears. He has to be concussed, or close to it, and he can taste blood in his mouth.

"Nah, the bitch hasn't made a move since I busted her in the chest for trying to pull some bullshit a few days ago." The other guard says. He wishes they wouldn't grip his arms so hard, but he can't carry his own weight and they have to drag him to his cell.

"Let's hope it stays that way." The first guard lets Bren go to open the cell door.

"Don't count on it, she can really get to screeching." The second guard snorts and Bren is shoved head-first through the cell. There's straw lining the floor that smells like rot and rat shit and it does not soften the fall at all. Brenhardly catches himself before busting his face open on the stone.

The door clangs shut behind him and Bren rolls onto his side, sparks flashing behind his eyes and his head splitting from the pain.

He breathes hard, clutching his arm hard. His soul-mark always aches when he's distressed as if mocking him. He used to unspool the bandages and look at it, to stave off another hour of hunger or another night of cold. His head spins and he feels close to being sick, but that will make the smell worse. So Bren starts thinking, rifling through mental pages in his head, centering himself on that and not the ache in his head where he was hit with a mace. Twice, actually.

He cracks his eyes open and he's being watched by a goblin.

The goblin is smaller than him, would come up to his belly button if they were standing. It has long dark hair hanging around it's face, that might be dark green or it might be the way it looks next to her green skin. It's mostly wrapped in thin bandages, hood pulled down so it's not as covered. It's eyes are the most striking, bright yellow, with almost red in the middle where it slits. The small amount of light in the cell reflects in its eyes, flashing back at him. He can't help but stare back.

The goblin speaks first, with a voice that's high and strange and what Bren thinks passes as feminine for goblins. "You look like you got in a fight with a pig and lost."

It's not an incorrect assumption. "Guards." He explains.

"Like I said. Pigs." She scoffs.

~

They talk. She is, in fact, a female goblin, but he's got no idea how old she is and is afraid to ask and offend her. She's in for stealing, and him for trespassing. She got all her best weapons and her acid-making kit taken, and they took his spellbook. They don't bring her food but she sometimes can kill a rat, and Bren thinks a little meat would be nice but doesn't ask for her to share.

Her name is Nott The Brave. It's one of the last things they talk about a few days into their relationship as cellmates.

"With two t's." She says, swiping a finger along the edge of their shared bowl of corn gruel. They only bring food to Bren, and he shares with her. She never asks for it, but he does, because it seems wrong to let her starve. "N-O-T-T. The Brave." She sucks the finger clean.

"Is that a family name, or an appellation?" Caleb asks.

"Just what I'm called, human. What's your name then?"

Bren picks two random names from his repository of names for this exact purpose. "Caleb Widogast."

"What's a Widogast?" She cocks her head to the side, ears perking.

"It's what I'm called." He copies her.

She gives him her first smile at that, all sharp teeth and pleasure. It would scare him, if not for the fact Caleb is sure she doesn't want to hurt him. "Smartass, huh?"

He rolls his eyes at her. Friendly teasing seems absurd here, but it feels natural with this strange goblin woman.

~

“You… have a cat?” Nott asks. 

“He’s a familiar.” Caleb corrects her. “His name is Frumpkin and he’s magical.” 

She accepts it right away and pets him without hesitation. “What can he do?”

“I can cast spells through him sometimes, I can see and hear through him, I can give him orders and he does it.” He scratches Frumpkin under the chin. “Mostly he keeps me company, too.”

Nott’s eyes gleam in a way Caleb is quickly recognizing as an idea lighting up in her head. “Have you always liked cats?”

“Yes.” Caleb nods.

He isn’t sure what to make of the calculating look she gives him, but the light in her eyes changes as she focuses back on Frumpkin. “You think he could nab something I could use to get us out of here?”

Caleb regards Frumpkin. “Like what?”

“A needle, some wire, a nail, a hairpin maybe. An actual lockpick would be best, though.” 

Caleb can do that for her.

~

As it goes, Nott doesn't want to hurt him but is willing to hurt him after all. "Just saying, if I got some of your blood on me, and you acted like you got beat up, maybe they'll open the gate and we can run out." She says.

It's not a bad idea, but he can't go for it just like the last six plans they've come up with. "They could shoot you through the bars." He says.

"These guys couldn't know the right end of a crossbow if it gave them a kiss." Nott says. "But fine, no blood, what then? I can pick us free at any time, but if you're sure they'll shoot us down then we can't just sneak out."

" _ You _ could." Caleb says. He's quickly gotten used to the new name. She says it a lot.

"That's no way to pay you back for all the shitty gruel that's kept me from wasting away." Nott dismisses. "No, we need a distraction. Any ideas?"

Caleb does have an idea but doesn't like it. "Do you mind fire?"

Her eyes flicker up to him, and he gets the distinct idea that she  _ does _ have a problem with fire. "No." She lies. "Not today, though. They got paid two days ago, so they're all rested. Let's plan for the day before they get paid."

She's smart.

~

"Are you left-handed?" Caleb asks.

"Yes." She says. " I've always been better at using my left hand."

"Why do you always use your right hand, then?" Caleb asks. She still wears those filthy bandages, even around him, but he has his own bandages too so he's in no place to judge. He can't imagine her bandages help her with her lockpicking. 

"Easier." She says.

He doesn't believe her, but Caleb knows that Nott can be evasive if she wants no matter how terrible a liar she is.

~

He finds out anyway when she's practicing while she thinks he's asleep. Frumpkin walks around her, purring and sweet and every so often she brushes a hand out to give him a pat or a scratch.

She unwinds the bandages on her left hand to practice on the cell door with her piece of wire, and her hand has a burn on the back of her hand that crawls up her fingers. He pretends to be asleep, watching her through narrow eyes as she works, tongue between her teeth and determination in her eyes.

~

The day before, when they're supposed to be sleeping, Caleb is watching the moon outside. He wonders, but lets the thoughts go as they come. In a day he might be out in the world, and able to get further away. This is all because of the help of one goblin woman-girl (he still isn't sure) and her similar determination to be free. But then, if she's had the wire all along, why hasn't she left him already?

He catches Nott looking at him out of the corner of his eye. He can't read her and lets that thought slip away too.

~

Nott picks the lock.

Caleb sets a fire.

Instead of coming to them, the guards flee and they're free to walk out. It's laughable, how easy it is, and Caleb thinks there has to be a catch.

~

"Now run." Nott shoves the back of his knees as soon as they set foot outside. "I'll find you. Go." She says, and turns to run back into the burning building.

Caleb whirls around to retaliate, to grab her by the scruff of her shirt and haul her off with him. Everyone's already gone, but he can't leave her and survive it. He can't let another person burn for him who doesn't deserve it.

She's too fast, though, and disappears back into the doorway they just escaped.

He can't go in after her, he's not fast enough to track her, so he forces himself to run towards the woods and under his bandages his soul-mark aches with the memory of destroyed life.

She doesn't find him in the hours he paces the woods waiting for her. She doesn't find him when the moon rises above them. She doesn't find him when he starts to walk away, adding another boulder to the mountain of guilt already inside of him. He resolves to never forget her.

~

"I told you I'd find you." Nott says above him, hours later.

Caleb roars back to life, where he was hiding sleeping in the side of a ditch. He grabs her and shoves, sending her sprawling in the dirt and leaves.

He regrets it in a second when she makes a sound of pain. "For such skinny arms, you can hit when you want to." She wheezes

"Fuck." He says. "What did you do?"

"Got some presents." She says, and flashes a shiny new crossbow at him. It fits perfectly in her hand, and Caleb wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her brain slots back in the right place. Running into a burning building for a crossbow of all things, anyone can get a crossbow anywhere! He puffs up to tell her so.

"Got you something too." Nott says, and pulls a book from a hidden pocket.

Caleb is ready to berate her but sees the book in question. All the anger drains out of him in a second, replaced with something hot and soft. He eyes the familiar leather binding of his spellbook that was confiscated from him when he got thrown in with her. And shit, he can't be angry with her if she's done something so thoughtful for him. He takes it, flips through it, and nothing is damaged. Thank the gods that Caleb never thinks about for small miracles.

Frumpkin is delighted, curling around her knees and butting his head into her thighs. Then again, Frumpkin is a creation of his, so it’s possible that his cat is only reacting to his own delight. Either way it’s a cute image as Nott gives him scratches.

He tucks it into his coat. "Thank you." He says, mouth feeling hot and dry. It's a plain kindness, one he doesn't know what to do with.

"Don't mention it, Caleb." Nott says, but it's clear she enjoys the thanks.

They stare at each other, seconds dragging on as they're at an impasse.

"So." Caleb says. "Is this the part where we- I don't know- shake hands? Do we-"

"I think we can help each other." Nott says. "What do you think?"

He takes a deep breath. She's smart when she wants to be. She's fast. She's resourceful. She doesn't eat much and doesn't seem to expect the best of where she goes. A couple of country bumpkins, it seems, even if her home clan was probably worse than his little poor village. "Yes." He says. "I think we can help each other."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The updates for this are gonna slow waaaaaaaay down since it's gonna get into canon territory soon and I need to rewatch the earlier episodes anyways. I need to understand the "caleb doesn't know where their relationship stands and can't find the right way to describe it" dynamic better and also I like the canon story but there is a Lot of it.
> 
> So in the meantime, I'm writing a different AU thing that basically goes: Caleb meets Veth and the Brenatto family recently after leaving the asylum and he stays with them for the five years before Veth gets goblin'ed.


End file.
